Ex-Financial Times Journalist Tom Foremski @ the Collision of Technology and Media

31

March

2009

|

08:09 PM

America/Los_Angeles

Spanish Study: Green Jobs Could Lead To 11m Lost US Jobs

Silicon Valley is a leader in clean and green technologies and it is counting on considerable government support through tax breaks, grants and other programs, to build a large industry. Without government incentives progress will be slowed.

President Obama has cited Spain as a reference point because of the government's strong support for renewable energy programs over many years. And he has proposed investing as much as $210 billion to create five million "green-collar" jobs as part of a New Energy for America plan.

A new study from the Spanish university of Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, is the first critical analysis of government aid programs for green jobs. It shows that if the US adopted similar policies, it would destroy more than double the number of jobs created. The "Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources" shows that the US goal of creating 5 million green jobs could destroy as many as 11 million jobs elsewhere, a ratio of one to 2.2, or 9 jobs lost for every four green jobs.

The Spanish study also calculated that it cost 571,138 Euros to create each job. That's more than $755,000 for each green collar job.

With this type of economic cost in investment, and the large loss of other jobs, green tech in the US will face a tough road. If government subsidies for fossil fuel energy and jobs in other industries were removed, the comparison might be less alarming.

However, it is clear that it will be difficult to accelerate a trend towards a greener economy through government subsidies. And that will mean a cooling of private investment in many green and clean tech enterprises, profoundly affecting Silicon Valley's ambitions in these sectors.

"1. As President Obama correctly remarked, Spain provides a reference for the establishment of government aid to renewable energy. No other country has given such broad support to the construction and production of electricity through renewable sources. The arguments for Spain’s and Europe’s “green jobs” schemes are the same arguments now made in the U.S., principally that massive public support would produce large numbers of green jobs. The question that this paper answers is “at what price?”

2. Optimistically treating European Commission partially funded data1, we find that for every renewable energy job that the State manages to finance, Spain’s experience cited by President Obama as a model reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created.

3. Therefore, while it is not possible to directly translate Spain's experience with exactitude to claim that the U.S. would lose at least 6.6 million to 11 million jobs, as a direct consequence were it to actually create 3 to 5 million "green jobs" as promised (in addition to the jobs lost due to the opportunity cost of private capital employed in renewable energy), the study clearly reveals the tendency that the U.S. should expect such an outcome.

4. At minimum, therefore, the study's evaluation of the Spanish model cited as one for the U.S. to replicate in quick pursuit of "green jobs" serves a note of caution, that the reality is far from what has typically been presented, and that such schemes also offer considerable employment consequences and implications for emerging from the economic crisis.

5. Despite its hyper-aggressive (expensive and extensive) "green jobs" policies it appears that Spain likely has created a surprisingly low number of jobs, two- thirds of which came in construction, fabrication and installation, one quarter in administrative positions, marketing and projects engineering, and just one out of ten jobs has been created at the more permanent level of actual operation and maintenance of the renewable sources of electricity.

6. This came at great financial cost as well as cost in terms of jobs destroyed elsewhere in the economy.

7. The study calculates that since 2000 Spain spent Euros 571,138 to create each "green job", including subsidies of more than Euros 1 million per wind industry job.

8. The study calculates that the programs creating those jobs also resulted in the destruction of nearly 113,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy, or 2.2 jobs destroyed for every "green job" created.

9. Principally, these jobs were lost in metallurgy, non-metallic mining and food processing, beverage and tobacco.

10. Each "green" megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy: 8.99 by photovoltaics, 4.27 by wind energy, 5.05 by mini-hydro.

11. These costs do not appear to be unique to Spain's approach but instead are largely inherent in schemes to promote renewable energy sources.

12. The total over-cost - the amount paid over the cost that would result from buying the electricity generated by the renewable power plants at the market price - that has been incurred from 2000 to 2008 (adjusting by 4% and calculating its net present value [NPV] in 2008), amounts to 7,918.54 million Euros (appx. $10 billion USD)

13. The total subsidy spent and committed (NPV adjusted by 4%) to these three renewable sources amounts to 28,671 million euros ($36 billion USD).

14. The price of a comprehensive energy rate (paid by the end consumer) in Spain would have to be increased 31% to being to repay the historic debt generated by this rate deficit mainly produced by the subsidies to renewables, according to Spain's energy regulator.

15. Spanish citizens must therefore cope with either an increase of electricity rates or increased taxes (and public deficit), as will the U.S. if it follows Spain's model.

16. The high cost of electricity due to the green job policy tends to drive the relatively most energy-intensive companies and industries away, seeking areas where costs are lower. The example of Acerinox is just such a case.

17. The study offers a caution against a certain form of green energy mandate. Minimum guaranteed prices generate surpluses that are difficult to manage. In Spain's case, the minimum electricity prices for renewable-generated electricity, far above market prices, wasted a vast amount of capital that could have been otherwise economically allocated in other sectors. Arbitrary, state-established price systems inherent in "green energy" schemes leave the subsidized renewable industry hanging by a very weak thread and, it appears, doomed to dramatic adjustments that will include massive unemployment, loss of capital, dismantlement of productive facilities and perpetuation of inefficient ones.

18. These schemes create serious "bubble" potential, as Spain is now discovering. The most paradigmatic bubble case can be found in the photovoltaic industry. Even with subsidy schemes leaving the mean sale price of electricity generated from solar photovoltaic power 7 times higher than the mean price of the pool, solar failed even to reach 1% of Spain's total electricity production in 2008.

19. The energy future has been jeopardized by the current state of wind or photovoltaic technology (more expensive and less efficient than conventional energy sources). These policies will leave Spain saddled with and further artificially perpetuating obsolete fixed assets, far less productive than cutting-edge technologies, the soaring rates for which soon-to-be obsolete assets the government has committed to maintain at high levels during their lifetime.

20. The regulator should consider whether citizens and companies need expensive and inefficient energy - a factor of production usable in virtually every human project- or affordable energy to help overcome the economic crisis instead.

21. The Spanish system also jeopardizes conventional electricity facilities, which are the first to deal with the electricity tariff deficit that the State owes them.

22. Renewable technologies remained the beneficiaries of new credit while others began to struggle, though this was solely due to subsidies, mandates and related programs. As soon as subsequent programmatic changes take effect which became necessary due to "unsustainable" solar growth its credit will also cease.

23. This proves that the only way for the "renewables" sector - which was never feasible by itself on the basis of consumer demand - to be "countercyclical" in crisis periods is also via government subsidies. These schemes create a bubble, which is boosted as soon as investors find in "renewables" one of the few profitable sectors while when fleeing other investments. Yet it is axiomatic, as we are seeing now, that when crisis arises, the Government cannot afford this growing subsidy cost either, and finally must penalize the artificial renewable industries which then face collapse.

24. Renewables consume enormous taxpayer resources. In Spain, the average annuity payable to renewables is equivalent to 4.35% of all VAT collected, 3.45% of the household income tax, or 5.6% of the corporate income tax for 2007."